he fights using hard. are to help him to leave death row. i'm. writing. to. the family. in headlines this wednesday lunchtime grim footage from a german criminal tory i'm highlighting the extent of the resurgent pandemic europe wide amid claims that burdens ignoring e.u. solidarity on purchases. you also if you sit down in the restaurant trade for a service for only i'm sure of it good. for what you're doing right now it's making headlines u.k. police cracking down on lockdown violators but are caught on camera maybe apparently breaking the very rules they're trying to enforce. and you tube

joins the list of tech giants no purging donald trump and his supporters from their online pages but the wave of bands is sparking claims too that these online behemoths have become simply too powerful. even to go as far as the kid because drunk with power like in gorge that they are now controlling pretty much the entire communications system all over the walls. and every good afternoon you watching out international life is me kevin 0 in 30 minutes of our latest for you coming up than 1st europe continues to suffer a fresh surge in covert cases with france germany and spain registering some of the highest daily rates footage emerging too from one of germany's worst affected regions highlighting just how bad that situation has become

a well this sort of scene is europe wide of course some 300 bodies piling up in this particular queue for a section in crematorium the coffin stuck one on top of one another a sad see simply inscribed with words like covidien infectious risk it comes as the european union struggles to maintain unity over covert vaccine purchases to brussels is urging member states to adhere to the block centralized distribution scheme but it seems that few heeding the call at the moment here's our europe correspondent. the european union's one for all and all for one vaccine plan is called to against the problem of members self interest when it comes to obtaining the jobs germany has snapped up an extra 13000000 doses of the pfizer vaccines being criticized by its partners for doing so it is selfish behavior to buy medicine by yourself disrespecting common decisions is another example of the

german policy of respecting their own interests above the interests of other e.u. countries berlin insists it is playing by the rules and that those extra doses won't be sent out until the vaccine is being dispatched across the rest of the european union germany says the real problem lies with problems when it comes to production it's not correct to see the germany secure vaccines at the expense of other countries. would see it we have ordered enough vaccines and the question is how can they be produced how fast they can be produced and if we would have ordered more it would not have been possible to produce it quicker the shortage is due to the lack of production capacity it isn't just germany that's being accused of looking out for itself cyprus is courting israel for vaccine delivery saying that the european union isn't forthcoming with the new doses to provide a mass switch to rollout the initial indications were very encouraging but at some

point there was a setback in its effectiveness 2 companies came up with the vaccine 1st phase the buying to commit done but the number of vaccines is not enough for rapid mass vaccination e.u. commission president has live on the line is telling member states to cut it out into it to the plan that they all agreed on we have all agreed legally binding that there will be no parallel negotiations no parallel contracts so the framework we are all working. in is a framework of 27 together and we are negotiating together we are procuring and together we are bringing forward this vaccination process brussels is calling on member states to come clean about any side deals they may have going on the president has asked commissioner qineti this to send a letter to all health ministers asking them to provide us with all the necessary

transparency on the way in which they are complying with the provisions of our vaccine strategy in terms of contacts or lack of contacts rather with with those pharmaceutical companies that we have been or are negotiating with the commission on doing themselves any favors demanding transparency from member states when it comes to vaccine procurement when they are being a lot clearer on who will get what when the 27 agree that brussels would negotiate on their behalf the accusation is that that is being undermined by member states looking out for number one as we see the the e.u. were very slow compared to other countries both in their regulation approvals bowls and there are a vaccination campaigns and. again no surprise that there is one set

disaffection we we indeed have of across the across the whole front we have a very poor performance by the european union here but the central administration of the european union all they managed was to secure so the $100000000.00 doses for a population of $450.00 so taking into account that you need 2 doses per person this was one 3rd of the population for which the vaccine was secured because of some budget constraints. it is officially said so no wonder that the e.u. population is not very happy with that performance 'd in brussels. the red cross says while the development of covert vaccines does not mean people should ease up on basic preventative measures we spoke to the head of the humanitarian groups health care department then it's something that we need to be prepared and we need to do is physically some saying is avoiding being in crowded places is making sure

that one gets gets isolated and people are in contact with somebody sick we are in thailand up for some provide the support that is needed and to the person can go out again these are critical measures that can save thousands of life until vaccines will be widely available in all countries we can not lower the guard right now because the. researchers are worried about what we have been seeing a even the u.k. and in south africa where. developed at the further mutations occur we may see potentially also reduction of the effectiveness of some of the vaccine the majority of the world unfortunately was not started vaccination programs yet and we know that we need to vaccinate people all over the world to assure safety for everybody around the world so we'll we'll have to accelerate the pace at which a vaccine is will be distributed around the world ensuring got

a mechanism to do so. in that very safe safe way and until that moment the best line of defense will be individual behavior. so just as the red cross are warning the public that they must play a part to fight the pandemic at the same time u.k. police are increasingly swooping in to find people who break the lock down restrictions leaving home without a reasonable excuse at the moment could mean a 200 pound fine rising to 6400 pounds for repeat offenders but next the show did reach dashti found in foresman seems to be widely inconsistent too with officers sometimes forced to back down leave apparently a few floating the rules themselves. despite the u.k. being in a full scale national look down kovac 9 6 1000 cases a soaring and death rates are constantly hitting records the public has been ordered to stay at home once again but it seems not everyone is sticking to the rules and where the rule breakers rule makers have given the place more power to

clamp down on the law if you do not play your part our selfless police officers who are out there risking their own lives every day to keep us safe they will enforce the regulations and i will back them to do so to protect our n.h.s. and to save lives and england and wales piece of issued 8000 penalties since november but leading by example isn't exactly the strong point you know for if you sit down in a restaurant takeaway service firmly on. the what you're doing right now. some offices are not as eager to abide by the rules as they are to enforce them to women who drive 8 kilometers to meet up for a walk and found themselves surrounded by police their offense carrying coffee that made to the picnic so they were fined $200.00 pounds each in fact they were strictly following the rules as peace later admitted worsening the fines and giving

a half hearted apology look we martin being our crew. is an operational marker and if it's not take out coffee spreading kind of it it snowballs trip shipley's of starts and throws with $200.00 pounds fines there have been 2 reports of snow balls being thrown last night between 11 and 11 30 pm this is obviously not a justifiable reason to be out of your house this behavior is likely to result in a 200 pounds fixed penalty notice for breaking the lockdown rule the tweet has since been deleted after dozens of angry complaints but still the message is stay at home we're going to keep the course review we have to try. we will but we have rules in place we're ready now is the moment for some of the jutes to move observation observance of the groups although the prime minister himself a spot it's like ling 11 kilometers away from downing street so is it

a case of one rule for me and another for you shouting at that stache the. truck in this next 4 years the u.s. house of representatives has approved a resolution then calling on vice president mike pence to invoke the 25th amendment to start impeachment proceedings against donald trump however that of the water pence has already stated that he would reject the call that attempts at a 2nd impeachment are detrimental to the country i do not believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our nation or consistent with our constitution i urge the congress to avoid actions that would further divide and inflame the passions of the moment for the average brit is really a continuation of the greatest which is your politics it's ridiculous i think it's a good thing for a man they get to our country and it causing tremendous anger. so as lawmakers attempt to try to remove from from the white house tech joy and serve already all

but to raise the president's online presence you tube now joining the likes of amazon facebook and twitter and suspending donald trump social media pages as well as purging thousands of his followers to claim that they could incite violence it follows last week's storming of the capitol building in washington d.c. which some leading politicians and mainstream media have branded as domestic terrorism but another side to this there's pushback to against the growing role and power of big online companies and what's happened over the last few days r.t. america's john harvey covers it for you. the twitter hit list continues the social media site has permanently suspended more than $70000.00 accounts accused of promoting conspiracy theories or violent rhetoric including most prominently banning donald trump from the platform friday concluding his tweets constituted a risk to public safety and could potentially lead to more violence in the wake of these efforts twitter stocks tumbled as much as 12 percent monday and continued to

fall today the crackdown has drawn iron criticism from some republican lawmakers who say twitter is attacking the president's right to free speech and u.s. lawmakers aren't alone a spokesman for german chancellor angela merkel said chancellor merkel criticized twitter is trying to ban arguing legislators not private companies should decide on free speech and expression regulations european union commissioner terry britton called the chaos on capitol hill the quote $911.00 moment of social media writing in an op ed for politico that by banning donald trump social media companies have quote recognized their responsibility duty and means to prevent the spread of illegal viral content they can no longer hide their responsibility toward society by arguing that they merely provide hosting services yet he goes on to write that the fact a c.e.o. can pull the plug on posts is loudspeaker without any checks and balances is perplexing adding it is not only confirmation of the power of these platforms but

it also displays deep weaknesses in the way our society is organized in the digital space for those who either love or love the dons daily rants and raves well it certainly is a perplexing time though maybe not exactly surprising twitter and facebook were already flagging trumps posts and seemingly moving in the direction of suspending and or banning him altogether but another question critics of the social media slaughter are raising is why so late in the game with less than 2 weeks in his presidency many contend the social media crackdown should have been. and sooner or not at all others contend it's a dangerous power play by big tech flexing its digital muscles knowing full well that president trump's powers on the eve of his departure from office are more limited that he doesn't have the time or ability at this point to attack the social media platforms that have launched a full scale war on him and the hits keep on coming for trump deutsche bank now reportedly cutting ties with the dawn a move that would be

a major cut in funding for his hotels and golf courses and speaking of which the p.g.a. announced it would strip trump's new jersey golf club from a major championship tournament next year a move that reportedly gutted the president for our t.v. john hardy so coming out in for those on goes on the tech jones continued to crack down on the president and spoke to a panel of guests on whether they've now simply become too powerful. they just won an election they're going to see how far they can push this this is a stress test to see how far the law will go how long how much people will tolerate and are going to go as far as they can because drunk with power like it in gorge to kick that is filled with blood just can't get enough of this so where it ends who knows they know which way the wind is blowing donald trump is no longer going to be in the white house almost all of these companies face antitrust suits that are going to be decided by the biden department of justice and so now there is going to

be less of a priority to maybe make these arguments internally that donald trump and his account should be protected but these are self interested actors it is over years that they are now controlling pretty much the the entire communications system all over the wall which is unprecedented but we are going to see a police some backlash because it will be a matter of time before censorship pull be move on to other parts of the will credit bardi companies like twitter facebook and imus and can do this to their own president if they do it anywhere in the wealth to any government they don't like. oh certainly so. they that the largest problems within these companies is that there really is no actual basis for which they are operating there is no bible there is no constitution there is no their terms of service are often edited and malleable and even then subject vague enough to be subject to the

whims of internal discussions within the company this it means that we have to rewrite the 1st amendment in this country because this is a quote private company that 99 percent of all the people on the planet use our laws are outdated and unless that is changed nothing will change at least in this country now the question who should be more the rating perhaps the thirty's this should be a form of duration but it needs to be transparent so the state of affairs at the moment they don't know who makes those were the rationed settlements with the sentence. is no going to be certainly acceptable when social media platforms where created do you think they're creative intended to end like this with a massive bans and censorship. of course absolutely look one of these days we're going to find out that this this this fraudulent story about these kids these

nerdy kid who came up with the idea there was so much involvement in not only private equity but in government sponsored this was never intended to be good this isn't some kind of a scrapbook that we keep this was one of the biggest cons that we fell into hook line and sinker those dean going to giants and being exposed for all they actually are this is a mission statement to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly without barriers now people used to believe this does anyone believe that anymore i don't think so russian made messaging out telegram has seen a surge in popularity in recent days 5600000 downloads since wednesday and 5 people ditching 1000 which is owned by facebook in fact turkey's president has just joined telegram as well is that an encouraging sign you think yes rising social media is

going to be a benefit the question that i have is are we now bifurcating the internet are we going to totally solve select from the point of adolescence or before or to be handed down by our parents to our children that we now only go on social networks and only interact with people and that are only hosted on servers that either are liberal or conservative or possibly even more extreme versions of that that to me is a dystopian vision that i think is something that is closer today then i've ever known it my lifetime. provisions are the future to something happening right now after the break in fact we're talking about this small sco kohls latvia's prosecution of russian speaking journalists an attack on basic democratic values.

as the trump presidency comes to an end the country stares into a political abyss divisions are deeper level than ever before and dialogue is

almost non-existent talk of compromise is deemed to be treasonous by many this will shortly change. again the times exactly 21 minutes past the next russia's foreign ministry spokesperson has warned that latvia's prosecution of russian speaking journalists threatens fundamental values including free speach. their oppression of journalists rights is becoming ever more commonplace and some countries have set of state mechanisms for exerting pressure on dissident media professionals we view this aggressive actions as a blatant disregard for press freedom and freedom of speech the basics of a democratic society but of last month love for security services open criminal probes into journalists working for the bold news and r.t. affiliated sputnik news agencies they were accused of violating e.u.

sanctions on moscow one of the accused told us how security agents had lied to gain access to his home. the shakedown started it 9 30 in the morning on december the 3rd somebody rang the doorbell introduced themselves as plumbers well i opened it and about 12 self-proclaimed plumbers entered you may be asking yourself who is this man what did he do is he a drug dealer a devious and loathsome russian hacker may be know the dealer is a journalist making a living by selling his articles to various outlets and from the standpoint of the latvian authorities he recently chose the wrong ones to do business with. i write articles being published in 2 sources that are subsidiaries to receive. first of all sputnik a lot fewer and bolts news and i several times a guest contributed for ria novosti the dimmer isn't the only one

a total of 7 journalists have had their homes turned upside down let's say and authorities the fact that the e.u. imposed sanctions against the tree of head of the media holding that all 7 journalists occasionally wrote for none of the writers though can see any logic to what's happening and how exactly the vortex of penalties against one particular individual sucked them all in. as a matter of fact they are free lance employees of the actions they write and added tax select photos in other words they do their job and exercise their right to freedom of expression indeed bound only by the shackles of their professional integrity. along with his colleagues exposed events like these in on our of latvians who food for hitler's cause in world war 2.

so what is called a nazi march elsewhere in latium is known as remembrance day of the lothian legionnaires the dimmers says the government wants to mute any voice putting this and other controversial practices in the spotlight one thing is absolutely clear the goal of such searches and intimidations is to strip roscius avoidance of correspondence so that people will be afraid of cooperating with them and to undermine russian media influence here russia has repeatedly called out latvia over

what moscow views as persecution bringing this to the attention of the european union to urge in the block to simply uphold the values it so proudly stands for the legal case stays open leaving journalists with the constant fear of getting that knock on the door. finally before a go no way from the news a quick plug for the original show made by us we think you'll be interested in footage is a merged in moscow of eli cohen israel's top spy in the 1960 s. it became senior military advisor to syria's government back then helping israel beat its neighbor in the 6 day war and seize the golan heights or more recently hollywood star sacha baron cohen's betrayed his namesake's incredible story in the hit western streaming series the spy and we've got more you can watch our new documentary with this new footage i'm talking about here of various times throughout the day and online as well. i got this 8 millimeter film purely by

accident. time period 963 to 65 place damascus. i've watched it many times a man posing in monuments and all poster of the hollywood premiere of town with after and a fight in a market so without bruises. i had my doubts if i should waste my time on this but i came back to that film over and over again tracing a sequence of events happening in syria at that time anderson those who worked there. and then suddenly i saw him stop let's take another look now at low speed this is like cohen a super spy who some consider a national hero and others an evil villain an israeli double o.

7. plane. seemed wrong. to me you didn't get to shape

out just to become educated and engaged with equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart. just to look for common ground. i can't show you my face but i'm going to teach you must. in 9093 this man was sentenced to death. they could charged with capital murder even though he didn't have the gun didn't pull the trigger didn't intend to kill anybody the magic living in your bathroom for the week with the scent of a 23. doubt that i've observed to be. confined within 4 gray walls the front it's using hot. and all to help him to leave death row.

hello and welcome to cross talk we're all things are considered on peter lavelle as the trump presidency comes to an end the country stares into a political abyss divisions are deeper now than ever before and dialogue is almost nonexistent talk of compromise is deemed to be treasonous by many this will hardly change and january 20th. to discuss these issues and more i'm joined by my guest michael flanagan in

washington he is president of limey consulting and a former congressman in new york we have margaret kimberly she is the editor and senior columnist at the black agenda report any wrestling we cross to mean a shot she is founder of republican women for right across up girls in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate it ok let's go to. michael gerson washington these are very turbulent times that is obvious everyone knows that and i don't think anybody seen anything quite like this in our lifetime and i suppose that it was want to see it again to michael what can we agree on because we keep conking about what pulls us apart and what the divisions are what is there anything left that we can agree on go ahead i think there's i think there's more that makes us the same that makes us different and i've always believed that i have many friends in the n.-g. o. community who are left not just left of center but left you know way left and we agree on almost nothing politically.